The Prince threw up his hands with a gesture of weakness.
“It is too late,” he murmured, despondently. “Too late.”
“It shall never be too late while I live,” she cried, desperately. “It shall never be said that you were beaten by a woman. Force her from the path, by fair means or foul—and forced she shall be—and all the flimsy superstructure of this clumsy plot falls like a shattered dream. Never shall Bulgaria be crushed beneath that woman’s heel while I have strength in my right arm, or there remains a knife or a bullet in all the land. I swear it.”
She uttered the vengeful words with all the vehement force of her violent temper, and as I looked at her I could see the thoughts of murder lighting her strained, glowing features, and brightly gleaming eyes.
But while they stirred repugnance in me they seemed only to add to the Prince’s despondency.
“There has been too much blood shed already,” he said, in a tone of rebuke.
“THE COUNT HAS MY PERMISSION TO RETIRE.”—Page [89].
“Too much; aye, so much that one woman’s life more will make no difference. So they thought when they planned that mine should be the life—and shall I be softer than they?”
The Prince looked at me with an expression I was quick to read, and I made a movement as if to leave.